I'm fairly new to Ps and I'd like to create an effect whereby a window looks as though it's jumping out of something, leaving behind a trail or streak with blur, so that it looks in motion.

I've been playing around with various blur effects but don't seem to find a good one. I created the attached image which hopefully will illustrate what I mean. I want something where the motion is continuous as opposed the image here where you can tell that there are three copies.

2 Answers
2

Looking at the comic "The Flash" in images you can see that the best way is to select the side that you want the motion trail to be on and simply transform it so that it stretches and distorts. No blur is necessary.

See in those images how its a smooth element and only shows the edge that has the blur, not the entire image.

The two mocks below were made by selecting a slim part on the right side, copying it to a new layer, then distorting it. No blur effects were used. The second example because of how simple the outline is I then took a large size airbrush and erased very slightly on the small end. I did these both very quickly and with your jpeg and I'm pretty sure I didn't select the black outline in my "slim selection" if I had it would probably look even better but I'll leave that for you.

I would create maybe 3 more windows and flatten the windows behind the top window and convert the layer for smart filters (Filter > Convert for smart filters) then select motion blur. Just be sure not to include the top window you don't want blurred. For the angle I used 11 degrees and for the distance 43pixels But you could use any you like to your taste. If your not happy with the results since you turned the layer into a smart filtered layer you can always double click the motion blur layer to change the settings (it should be directly under your merged window layer) there you will see an eye ball to turn on and off the motion blur effect too. :-)